


Touch

by SleepingReader



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 14:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11232741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingReader/pseuds/SleepingReader
Summary: A prompt from my friend Ciara, who asked: "a story about...space...something in space...a woman who travels through space, from planet to planet, encountering a strange and unique life form that appears as a strange silver sort of fog, and communicates when you make contact with it"





	Touch

Poke, poke. Touch. Stir. Poke, poke. It was all she ever did as a child, touching stuff, holding it up to one ear to see if it made sound, smelling it, tasting it (GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW) and letting it go again. She kept touching things as she grew older, not putting them in her mouth anymore, but touching anyway. Whenever her friends got a new haircut, she’d touch it. She’d touch the lizards in the pet shop, the water in the river and every rock she could find. That’s how she knew she had to become a scientist, because you can touch everything you like when you’re a scientist.

There is not much to touch in space. On planets, sure. But not in space. The only thing you touch is your steering wheel, a couple of levers and, in the end, ground. 

Not today, though. Today will be different. Observe her. See how her hair falls over her cheeks, how she slides it away with a hand. Is that a wedding band on her finger? Is her spouse with her, tucked away in a bed at the end of the space ship? We do not know. For now, we see only her. Only her, in the dim half-light, with the stars wheeling overhead and a planet just the tiniest spot in the distance. It will take a long time getting there. She’s getting tired, fiddling with her ring to keep her awake. She’s had enough for today. She can’t do anymore. No more flying. Just bed. Sweet, soft, bed. But damn. A light on her dashboard. Something is broken. Nothing much, just a small pipe, but a great nuisance if it gets through to the engine. Sighing, she puts on her helmet and space suit, and gets herself ready for a nice outdoors walk. Maybe she left a little note for her spouse, maybe she didn’t. That is for you to decide. Opening the first hatch, she gets in the De-compressuon chamber that keeps the Space (and the cold) out. She enters her code, so her ship knows she has gone, and steps out, making sure the line that tethers her to the ship is nice and strong. It is. 

Climbing across the ship to the offending pipe does her good. The weightlessness is also nice, for a change. The only thing that annoys her is the greasy thing on her helmet. She should have cleaned it..lWait, is that on her helmet or not? She doesn’t think so, for when she turns her head, it doesn’t move. It just… hangs. Wanting to get a closer look at this weird thing, she moves forward. It seems to be a strange sort of fog, a silvery mist that hangs in the air as if it is sentient. Maybe it is. She has seen stranger things. Well, maybe not, but she is not one to judge. (Touch.) says her brain. (Touch, touch. Poke, poke. Take off glove and poke poke). It doesn’t seem hostile, it just seems… foggy. She takes off her glove, making sure the air stays in her suit. She reaches out, just as the mist does as well. She recoils, slightly scared. The mist does the same, but somewhat later, as if it’s disappointed. She mutters to herself and reaches out again. The mist goes to her hand as if it is a cat, hoping to be petted. She touches the mist. It feels the way clouds look. She pokes at it. The mist pokes back. She strokes it. The mist seems to like this, curling around her hand. For a moment, she is scared. What if the mist is a lure, created by a creature that wants to eat her? But it doesn’t feel that way, for some reason. They both feel equally as curious about one another. 

When she pulls her hand back, she sees faint traces of glitter on her hand. As if the mist has touched her, and left something behind. The mist seems happy it made a friend. It curls around in cheerful spirals, and trails along behind her as she makes her way to the loose pipe. She’s happy she already took off her glove, because this particular pipe requires a lot of small-hands-work. She can’t get it back in place properly, and groans at the thought of staying out too long, because she knows she will be sore in the morning. The mist, however, seems to have other ideas. Curling once again around her hand, it seems to form fingers of itself, curling around the pipe, and putting it safely back in its place. When it trails off, the pipe sparkles with the same glitter as her hand. She smiles. The mist curls even more cheerful. She wishes she could do something in return. But the mist can’t speak. She offers her glove to it. Maybe the mist is a scientist, just like she is. The mist curls around the glove, taking it over from her. She waves at it. The glove waves back. She laughs. The mist curls. She waves again, and starts to go down to the opening hatch. The mist trails along for the longest part of the way, before waving the glove again and floating gently away from her. As we see her getting ready for bed, shutting all the hatches and gently crawling in between the sheets next to her spouse, we see a soft smile on her lips as she examines the mist-touched hand. Her spouse is going to be sorry they missed that!

Maybe, many years later her grandchildren ask her why her hand is always so glittery. And the story she tells them would always be the same. In deep space, she had met a scientist and made a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you like it! Comments? Questions? Let me know!


End file.
